John Le Carre, Smiley's People, Bob Mortimer & Andy Dawson, Athletico Mince, John Masefield, The Box Of Delights, John Kampfner, Why the Germans Do it Better: Notes from a Grown-Up Country, Stuart Turton, The Devil And The Dark Water, Paul embery, Despised: Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class

 More Holiday comfort reads as the post-Brexit trade deal is ratified and COVID cases continue to increase. Le Carre passed away over the period too, a superb writer who has been pigeon-holed as a 'spy writer', when in reality he has much to say about the state of post war Britain. 'Athletico Mince' was a cash-in spinoff from a very funny podcast featuring Bob Mortimer. It started as a football podcast, but quickly evolved into something much bigger and funnier that uses football as a jumping-off point for a series of grotesque characters. Roy Hodgson is a Warhammer obsessive, Harry Kane a pompous leader of a rubbish kids' gang, Peter Beardsley a tragic halfwit constantly abused by his poached egg-obsessed missus. I find myself laughing out loud at the absurdity, but really it's just two very funny blokes mucking about. 'The Box of Delights' was the purple pim and just right for Christmas Day, and then I've just finished Paul Embery's fascinating book. I agree with much of it, and how the Labour Party has abandoned and even come to despise many of the people who it should be representing, the economically left-wing but socially conservative working class. I do despair of the Labour party, and its obsession with minority issues like misgendering and shutting down of anything that questions the socially liberal orthodoxy.  The big question is whether the Labour Party, with an almost entirely socially and economically liberal PLP and overwhelmingly middle-class membership can ever reestablish its connection with the people it should be representing. As long as the unions back the party, I'll stay a member, but I'd happily jump ship for a viable alternative. I'm hardly a social conservative myself, but recognise that's a legitimate viewpoint for millions of people. The party doesn't speak to them, and it doesn't speak to me either. i find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with so much that Leanne Wood of Plaid and Caroline Lewis of the Greens say, and very little of what the leadership of the Labour Party say at the moment (Back Boris' awful trade deal, reopen schools as a priority, don't tax the wealthy more).